


Turn Your Charms

by Trobadora



Category: Original Work, Rotkäppchen | Little Red Riding Hood (Fairy Tale)
Genre: Multi, Threesome - F/M/M, Werewolves
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-10
Updated: 2018-01-10
Packaged: 2019-03-03 06:18:15
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,152
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13335231
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Trobadora/pseuds/Trobadora
Summary: What does he remember? The huntsman's crossbow, aimed at him. The huntsman before him. Armed villagers behind, the red-cloaked charmswoman among them.





	Turn Your Charms

**Author's Note:**

  * For [uumuu](https://archiveofourown.org/users/uumuu/gifts).



  
He wakes, sluggish and slow. The fur has retreated from his skin, and the smell of blood is heavy in the air, tangy on his tongue.

His eyes are crusted shut. He forces them open, struggling against the post-moon confusion. Red assaults his vision: two bodies in a pool of red, right before him.

  


* * *

  


What does he remember? The huntsman's crossbow, aimed at him. 

The huntsman before him. Armed villagers behind, the red-cloaked charmswoman among them.

  


* * *

  


What does he remember? A raging storm, howling-wet and miserable, and the smell of human on the path. The smell of rain-chilled smoke from ahead. 

Wondering why he hadn't stayed in shelter, deep in the woods.

Forcing himself out of his fur and into his human form, soaked through even worse, to knock on a door, its wolf-charms weak on the dark of the moon, with no power to repel his kind.

An old woman, inviting him in. The old woman's granddaughter inside, red-cloaked, raven-haired, with strings of the charms she'd made around her neck. Cool eyes across the room, recognising him for what he was.

What does he remember? Expecting the hue and cry, expecting a weapon raised, expecting to kill or be killed. Instead, a night spent talking: a charmswoman, asking questions of a wolf. And himself, answering, because no one had asked before. Stumbling over the words.

  


* * *

  


"You are wolf-born," the granddaughter said, confidently. She was young, this Little Red - she could not have seen more seasons than he, perhaps fewer - but she looked a full-trained charmswoman. "You were not bitten."

The full moon told him as much, if the absence of a scar hadn't: the bitten did not become what he did.

But she who bore him, and he who sired him, whoever they had been - they had abandoned him, or lost him, or they had died. He had grown up alone, wild. None of the wolf packs tolerated him for long. 

"No," he answered. "I was not."

The grandmother came from the kitchen and offered them cake, warm from the oven. It smelled like something he would like to let himself have.

The charmswoman watched him eat.

  


* * *

  


What does he remember? At the end of the night, the charmswoman said, "I am Sorra the Red." And she lifted one of the strings from her neck, separating a single charm.

She held it out on her palm. Instead of flinching back, he leaned forward.

It was not a wolf-charm, not meant to repel wolves: it was a curse, meant to attract. The opposite of a charm: stronger on the dark of the moon. She had _wanted_ him here.

"I am Curdle, of the Hunger," he said. 

She could not know what it meant, to be named one of the Hunger rather than of any pack, any identified line. But he gave her truth, and would answer that question, too, if she asked.

  


* * *

  


He saw her again, from a distance: travelling to her grandmother's house, every week. He learned her scent. 

He wanted to speak to her again, and could not find the words.

She was no older than he, but _he_ was still only of the Hunger, with no accomplishments to his name but survival.

  


* * *

  


What does he remember? A smell hanging around her, a human man's. 

He'd followed it, his nose picking up the trail easily in wolf form. Something gnawed in his stomach, and he growled. 

A deer broke through the underbrush before him, and on instinct, he lunged. On its back, bringing it down. It staggered, collapsed, died.

He only saw the crossbow bolt in its side afterwards, with teeth buried in its throat. He lifted his head, blood dripping.

Smell, sound, sight: the rush of blood was a distraction. A huntsman stood on the other side of the clearing, stopped by shock, crossbow raised.

A huntsman. The charmswoman's lover, a huntsman. The wolf growled.

But he was Sorra's, this huntsman, and Sorra was the wolf's, even if he hadn't found the way to tell her what he wanted, to ask her in proper words. Even though she wouldn't say yes, if he ever did.

He moved away from the deer. The huntsman didn't fire his crossbow. He smelled of fear, but he stood steady.

The wolf retreated.

  


* * *

  


What does he remember? Curiosity, not letting him go. Unaccustomed to such things, he thought of Sorra, daring to call a wolf because she had questions. On the dark of the moon, he stepped behind the huntsman, surprising him entirely.

The huntsman had good instincts in the woods. But a wolf of the Hunger had to be canny to survive, with no pack to protect him. 

"You did not shoot your crossbow," he said to the huntsman's back. 

The huntsman turned slowly, every sinew in his body tense. He wore a charm, but only the one, woven to be strongest at close quarters - he was a huntsman, after all, and would not wish to announce himself to any wolves in the vicinity from a distance. Fear emanated from him. 

"You did not attack me," the huntsman said.

A huntsman with a conscience. How strange.

They stared at each other; then the wolf fled back into the woods.

  


* * *

  


He watched them both, after. The charmswoman and the huntsman. Sorra, he repeated to himself. Sorra, Sorra, Sorra. Sorra the Red. And once he heard the huntsman's name spoken, that name was added to the litany: Connor. Connor. Connor. 

Sorra. Connor. Sorra and Connor.

Sorra and Connor, and the wolf.

  


* * *

  


He spent too much time around the village, as a wolf. 

But he was alone; he had no pack to wait for him in the woods. He had always travelled; he had no territory that was his - he should keep moving, should not stay. But he wanted to see them again, him and her.

  


* * *

  


What does he remember? The huntsman's crossbow, aimed at him. 

The huntsman before him. Armed villagers behind, the red-cloaked charmswoman among them. The wolf stood still, caught. 

He was in human form, but not for much longer. The moon was about to rise.

 _Shoot now, huntsman,_ the wolf thought darkly. _You will not get another chance._ He'd hoped for something else. Of course he'd been wrong. Company was not for him.

Fear rolled off the huntsman in waves. Connor was a big man. It would not save him. The wolf could see him look toward Sorra. Connor took a step forward, then another.

Close enough to die in a single lunge, now. Why?

The crossbow pointed at him. The huntsman's eyes were on him, firm and terrified. The crossbow moved.

"Stand back," the huntsman demanded - of the villagers.

Oh. _Oh._

Little use though it would be now: the wolf had chosen well, after all. He hadn't been wrong, after all. With _one_ of his choices.

Connor stood, crossbow at the ready, a fierce look on his face.

Beautiful.

Beautiful, but it wouldn't be enough. The villagers had weapons, too. The wolf turned to face them.

Then _she_ stepped forward from the group: Sorra, her red cloak bright in the torchlight, and the charms she carried grated against his skin, driving him away.

Unwillingly, he took a step back. At the dark of the moon he had sat in a room with these same charms. With the full moon rising, he could not resist them. But once the fighting started, he would tear her throat out, charms or no.

It would kill him, but he would.

For being a charmswoman, yes, but more than that, for that night at her grandmother's house. The old woman had offered them cake, and Sorra had spoken to him, had listened with bright eyes, rapt and hungry.

She sought his death now, and she would pay for it, along with the rest of them.

It was her hunger, he knew. It was her hunger for his answers that had made her beautiful to him. He understood hunger, and this was a hunger that must be shared.

Now here she stood before him, the villagers at her back, her powerful charms a pressure against every inch of his body. Connor, who had been her lover, aimed his crossbow at her.

A huntsman with a conscience, indeed: siding with the one who had not attacked first.

The wolf snapped, snarled, growled. She would be his, one way or the other.

Sorra smiled, lips red and teeth white, sharp. Her charms tore at him. When she spoke, her voice rang clear across the glade. "Charms can turn," she said. "If you know how."

And she turned around, her back to him, looked toward the villagers.

Shock rippled through them. The wolf stood stunned.

"I'll turn them all," the charmswoman said, wild and dangerous. "Every last one of your charms. You'll attract every wolf in the land. Unless you leave now."

The villagers began shuffling, nervously. 

Sorra. Sorra, Sorra, Sorra. He hadn't been wrong about her, after all - as he hadn't been wrong about Connor. When had he ever been this lucky?

Today. Today was that day.

The charmswoman lifted her hands, clapped them together, loud and harsh. Her voice was harsher: _"Leave."_

They did.

  


* * *

  


What does he remember? Sorra, lifting the strings of wolf-charms from her neck, twirling them over her head, letting them fly toward the nearby trees. Stepping closer.

Sorra looking at him, viciously pleased. Connor beside her, putting his crossbow away.

The wolf wanted to howl his victory. In the moments before the moon broke the horizon, the moments before speech was gone, he told them both, "No turning back now." 

They must have known. Men and women had been killed on sight, for less. The villagers wouldn't have them again, after this - wouldn't even if he sent them away. Not that he would. 

"I know," Connor said, eyes flickering between them.

Sorra pushed back the hood of her red cloak. "No turning back for you, either," she said.

He looked at them and grinned, fierce and greedy. His body changed, his moon-form took him, and he surged.

  


* * *

  


What does he remember? Chasing them, hunting them through the woods. Sorra and Connor running, feet splattering through a brook, scrambling over rocks and through underbrush, the wolf after them, fierce on their trail. 

In wolf-form he hunts well, far better than as a human, but nothing beats _this_ , the shape of the full moon, with all the best traits of both. 

Except for speech, but he does not miss words in that form. Only before, only after.

Under the full moon, he herded them into the woods, deep, to his lair. They would be bloodied, both of them, this night. And they would wake up his.

  


* * *

  


What he remembers is this: Closing his fangs over Sorra's throat, holding her still. Growling against Connor's neck. Wanting them both _down_ , where they belonged: under him.

Clawed hands digging into cloth, ripping. Rough hands, hunting hands, cupping Connor's hardness, pushing between Sorra's legs.

Sorra's eyes, bright and feverish, watching everything, taking everything in.

Connor's eyes, terror and want competing as his body moves on instinct against the wolf's fur.

Taking them both, on the bed of Sorra's red cloak.

Fangs in Sorra's shoulder as she screams, as she whimpers; fangs in Connor's.

Possessing them, marking them _his_.

  


* * *

  


He wakes, sluggish and slow. The fur has retreated from his skin, and the smell of blood is heavy in the air, tangy on his tongue. Blood and sweat and a woman's fluids, a man's seed.

His eyes are crusted shut. He forces them open, struggling against the post-moon confusion. Red assaults his vision: two bodies in a pool of red, right before him.

Connor on his back, Sorra's head on his unbitten shoulder. There are scratches on their skin from his claws. Their breath is steady; they remain asleep.

He must have moved away when the moon set, when his body shifted back. It feels wrong, to be apart. He needs to be with them, with his pack. 

It takes effort to rouse himself enough to move, but he does, collapsing on top of his bite, on Connor's shoulder. He throws an arm over Sorra, and closes his eyes again. They stir briefly, but don't wake.

He drifts.

He thinks of Connor and Sorra, and he drifts.

His eyes snap open. _His pack._ He has a pack: it has no name yet, but Curdle of the Hunger is no more. 

He looks at the sturdy red cloak beneath them. Perhaps he'll be Curdle of the Red Cloak, now.

He thinks of Connor and Sorra, turning away from the villagers for him. But not all of them came after him with weapons.

He thinks of Sorra's grandmother, who must have heard them talk. She must have known she had a wolf in her house. Perhaps Sorra can visit her. Perhaps they all can.

Perhaps the old woman will offer them cake again.


End file.
